9781422287705

voices. Sarah and her friends clump together around Jessica’s locker, laughing and exchanging news from the summer months. But the biggest topic of the day is the upcoming school dance. Ugh , thinks Sarah, school has barely even begun and already we have to worry about a school dance . Sarah has never liked school dances. They almost always end with someone crying or going home with hurt feelings. And yet you have to go or you look weird. Jessica turns her attention on Sarah, and asks, “So, Sarah, do you think that Matt will ask you to the dance?” Sarah cringes. How does Jessica know about her feelings for Matt? Even Sarah isn’t sure how she feels about him. “Uh . . . I don’t know. I guess he can do what he wants.” This makes every- one laugh, and Sarah walks away feeling confused and a little hurt. Do they know something that she doesn’t? Are they suggest- ing that she has a crush on Matt? And yet Sarah can’t help but admit, if only to herself, that she spends a lot of time lately thinking about Matt. Until recently, she never really thought of him as more than a friend. She always got a laugh out of the things he said during class, and last year they were lab partners in science. But never, in all of that time did she think Matt was, well, cute . But then, this summer, she went to the same sleep-away camp as Matt. They sat around the fire at night, sharing ghost stories. During the day, she noticed the way he did flips from the diving board into the pond. Suddenly she started to see him differently. When sitting by the campfire, she felt herself wanting to sit closer to Matt. She wondered what it would be like to hold his hand or feel his arms around her. She started notic- ing little things about him, like the fact that he had two laughs: one was a quiet laugh that he used when he was being polite, or listening to adults, and the other laugh was big and loud and boomed off the walls. She even wondered what it would be like to kiss him. Now, she suddenly found herself at a loss for words when she was around him. During meal time at camp, she’d find herself in

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What I s Roman t i c At t rac t ion?